Final Tech Report HD - Flipbook - Page 18
Technology is moving incredibly quickly and will bring massive
change to the financial services industry in Ireland.
My consultancy, Norio Ventures, works right across the Fintech
sector but let’s do a deep dive into the funds industry to see
how technology will impact a segment of the financial services
industry.
Since the 1990’s, Ireland has built up such an impressive global
funds business. We’ve more than 30,000 people either directly
employed in the funds industry or in associated service
businesses, andover five trillion dollars under administration
PETE TOWNSEND
FOUNDER & CEO,
NORIO VENTURES
here. Most of what the funds industry does is defined as
‘middle and back-office operations’.
The reality of Brexit has resulted in a significant number of UK
fund managers setting up in Ireland. They tend to bring
compliance, risk management, and other governance-
"These leaders know the
difference between the bitcoin
blockchain and multi-party
consensus mechanisms, or
‘blockchain-inspired’ financial
market utilities. They’ve realised
that the world’s single largest
use of blockchain technology is
not actually applicable to
capital markets, but know that
innovators are already bringing
variations of it to market."
driven roles. My prediction is that we’re not going to see all that
much of the trading operations, the portfolio management,
and the investment decision-making here in Ireland just yet.
All of that is likely to remain in London and New York, where
the natural talent pool is for those roles.
Over time, we will see some fund managers expand their
trading and portfolio management activities to Ireland, but the
arc of this skills-driven evolution is longer than most people
expect. I expect that we’re likely to remain middle and backoffice focused for, at least, the next five to ten years if not
longer.
This poses a risk for Ireland.
Currently, the mainstream asset management community is
dealing with the headache of regulatory overload. There’s also
a heavy web of legacy technology that is weighing down the
system.
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